CNN Anchor Lectures Conservative Radio Host on His White ‘Privilege’

Over the weekend, CNN’s Don Lemon lectured conservative radio host Ben Ferguson on the “privilege” that comes with his white skin, saying he has a “place of privilege” that makes him unable to truly understand certain racial issues.

“[Y]ou still have a certain entitlement as a white person that many people of color don’t have. You don’t see that?” Lemon asked his guest.

However, Ferguson said he grew up in a “community surrounded by poverty” and certainly was not “entitled.”

(CNN)

That’s when Lemon changed his phrasing and told Ferguson that he comes from a “place of privilege.”

“I should say a place of privilege, not necessarily a place of entitlement,” the CNN host explained. “And you’re filtering it through a place of privilege that you don’t understand, your privilege does not allow you to see certain biases and certain circumstances in this society.”

Ferguson and Lemon also battled over the content of President Barack Obama’s race-relations speech, during which he said Trayvon could have been him 35 years ago.

Lemon criticized his guest for having a “knee-jerk reaction” to Obama’s speech.

“First of all, it was more than an hour since the President spoke when I made my comments and my point was this and I make it again today. When you come out as the President of the United States of America and you paint a picture that every white woman in America is overly racist towards black men–,” Ferguson said before being cut off.

“That’s not what the President said. You’re putting words in the President’s mouth. The President did not say that. He didn’t say that. You can go back to the President’s transcript, he did not say that,” Lemon shot back.

“He said that they clutched their purse,” Ferguson said.

Lemon argued that the president was merely pointing out that he has personally experienced such situations.

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